Dream Master

Cy’s voice was trembling so much that he couldn’t go on. He kneeled down beside the dreamcloak. The strange substance shivered and seemed to weep around him.

‘I . . . I . . .’ Cy’s mum was a bit shaken. ‘I was sorting clothes, looking out warmer things for the autumn, and I found this under your bed.’

‘I keep my own stuff under my bed right at the back!’ shouted Cy. ‘Can’t I get any privacy in this house?’

‘Of course you can.’ Cy’s mum tried to put her arm round his shoulder but Cy threw it off. ‘I’m sorry. I thought it was just some old clothes you’d worn on the beach.’

‘You’ve ruined it,’ said Cy. He was almost crying. ‘It’ll never, work again. It’s destroyed.’

Cy’s father came down the ladder to have a look.

‘What is it anyway?’ asked Cy’s mum.

‘It’s obvious,’ said Cy’s dad.

Cy’s heart jumped. He looked up at his father.

‘Cy told you. It’s one of his experiments. Probably to do with his school project.’ Cy’s dad kneeled down. ‘Look, son, why don’t you put this . . . um . . . put this away under your bed. No-one will touch it again.’ He glanced at Cy’s mum.

She nodded. ‘Come back down when you’ve done that,’ she said. ‘I’ll make some cool milk shakes.’

Cy gathered the ends of the towel and wrapped up the remains of the dreamcloak. He went slowly upstairs and shoved it back under his bed. He sat for a minute or two, but he knew that he would have to go downstairs again and allow his parents to make it up to him. Otherwise they would only come to his room and try to have a meaningful conversation with him about emotions, relationships or growing up.

In the kitchen Cy found his father looking through the cupboards.

‘Right, Cy, I’ve got it.’ His dad held up a tiny bottle of dark liquid.

Cy sat down and began to drink the milk shake that his mum had made him. ‘What?’ he asked.

‘Cochineal. Red food colouring. And don’t worry,’ Cy’s dad added, as he saw the expression on Cy’s face. ‘We are not going to bake.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘Make a volcano.’ Cy’s dad lifted the kettle full of hot water. ‘Could you put some cold water in a bowl and bring it outside, please, Cy? When you’ve finished your milk shake. I’ll find the rest of the stuff we need in the hut.’

Cy trailed after his father into the garden.

‘I thought showing you this might help with your project.’

Cy watched as his dad rummaged around in the garden hut. There is so much stuff in here, thought Cy, he can’t possibly know where everything is. His dad took an old cardboard box and cut out a square from one side. Then he punched a small hole in the centre with a nail. He found some corks from when he had tried wine-making after a family visit to France. Then he dug out a glass jam jar and a small narrow-necked bottle. He took all the bits and pieces and placed them on the garden table.

‘We’ll put a few drops of food colouring in this narrow-necked bottle and fill it up with warm water from the kettle. That’s the cone of the volcano.’

Cy’s dad half filled the jam jar with cold water from the basin and placed the pierced square of card on the top. Then he upended the jar and card onto the top of the small bottle with the red-coloured liquid. He waited a few moments and then began to press down carefully. Slowly, little drifts of colour began to seep through the hole in the card. As Cy watched they rose upwards in spurts through the cold water.

‘Do you know why that is happening?’ asked Cy’s dad, and then he answered before Cy could reply. ‘It’s because warm liquid rises!’

Cy watched the tiny puffs of red and imagined that they were fire and hot rock hurtling into the air.

‘Just think of what that would be like magnified a thousand million times,’ said Cy’s dad. ‘The magma chamber of the volcano is full of molten rock. It tries to push up through the earth’s crust to escape. When it does come through the surface then it becomes rivers of lava flowing away from the vents. Sometimes the magma is not so runny. It can be so hard that it blocks the upward flow of the gases behind it.’

Cy’s dad took some of the corks and held them under the water in the basin. ‘These gases are deadly and they build up until there is an enormous explosion.’ He released the corks and they shot to the surface of the water. ‘It creates a huge, intensely hot poisonous cloud of ash and gas. That’s called a pyroclastic surge.’

It was a hot August afternoon but Cy shivered. He knew from his research this morning that the explosive kinds of volcanic eruption were the most dangerous. The force that had blown the top off Mount St Helens had blasted eight thousand million tonnes of rock into the air. Cy also knew that people living near these types of volcano often had little or no warning of what was about to happen.

Cy’s dad lifted the model and took it into the house. Cy’s mum had the insides of the washing machine spread out on the floor and was kneeling amongst them, studying the operating manual. Cy’s dad leaned over to show her the volcano experiment.

‘Look at that,’ he said. ‘It demonstrates the scientific principles of volcanic eruptions.’ He set the model down on the worktop and gazed at it. ‘I’m quite proud of that,’ he said.

Cy’s mum looked up from the floor. ‘The kitchen window-frames are only half-painted,’ she said tersely.

‘I was spending quality time with my son,’ said Cy’s dad. ‘You don’t begrudge us that, do you?’

Cy’s mum glared at his dad. ‘I’m glad that you’ve got time for amusing yourself.’

Cy began to edge towards the door.

‘You were the one talking this morning about establishing good communication,’ said Cy’s dad. ‘I don’t call it “amusing myself”. I look on it as positive parenting.’

‘Right,’ said Cy’s mum. ‘I think it’s fairly straightforward to make models with children. How about you do something really challenging?’

‘I don’t think that there is any aspect of parenting where I am not prepared to have a go at least,’ said Cy’s dad in an aggrieved voice.

‘Really?’ said Cy’s mum. She beamed a benign smile, but her eyes showed triumph.

Oho, Dad, thought Cy, you should have been more careful. He recognized his mum’s look. If you were playing chess, it was the one that you saw on your opponent’s face just before they said, ‘Checkmate.’

‘Tell you what, darling.’ His mum’s tone, although soft, had an edge to it. ‘Tomorrow you can go shopping with Lauren to purchase her new school skirt.’

There was a long pause.

‘Ah,’ Cy heard his dad say as he slipped quietly out of the kitchen.